What Made You Feel Good Today

[Rab]

All good

Your post was probably truer though for someone like Phil though than a 9-5'er like me.

Once I knock off work for the day I don't really have any options to convert time to money.

Phil could have been in his cab earning coin instead of being under the car

["Captain Retard"]

I'm curious all the hours spent you got enjoyment from.

But if you even paid yourself ten dollars an hour both those cars cost you a sh*tload.

If it's got tits or wheels it will cost.

I've just clocked up 108hrs on my XA Hardtop (I'm actually keeping a log of hours and cost)

And that's only welding repairs in the chassis, no filler or sanding yet.

The way I figure it I've probably got another 200-300 hours (at least) of chassis repairs and mods before I even touch a panel.

But I am enjoying it (a lot more than I thought I would've).

I'm also not the fastest either, I do need to stop and think about what I'm doing a fair bit.

I have a mate that says that if I paid myself an hourly rate then I'd be better off paying a panel beater to do it.

I don't see the logic in that!

Panel beaters are notoriously unreliable and if I do it I know it's done properly.

And paying somebody 25 plus grand is simply not an option.

I'm honing my metalwork skills and learning a lot as well.

From what I've read I'll probably finish it quicker than a beater as well.

The point is, there's a great deal of satisfaction from learning the skills and doing the job yourself.

[eff xr6t]

^^ exactly this I've just started on my 68 xt falcon the amount of work that goes into an old car like these to do it right is huge and paying someone to do it will result in a cut and shut then bog over the top job atleast if you do it yourself you know what's underneath the bog and paint.

Plus I'd rather have a good panel and paint job and be able to say it was all done my self then say, Yeh I handed over 50k and my car came back two weeks later looking excellent. Then 5 years later looks worse then it did at the beginning.

[PhilMeUp]

I'm curious all the hours spent you got enjoyment from.

But if you even paid yourself ten dollars an hour both those cars cost you a sh*tload.

If it's got tits or wheels it will cost.

Well aware of that. I'm an expert on spending the absolute possible minimum on things that have wheels or tits. I horrified one girlfriend when I explained how low my cost-per-root was when I was playing the field for a while in 2006 and 2007. Maximum tadpoles, minimal money.

This is the same idiot that spent four hours trudging around Kuta a few months ago because I wanted to hire a car for $8.50 per day instead of $10. I am fat and unfit - I was pouring out sweat. I am one clinical cheapskate bastard at times.

The Tornado has still got a Falcon XT driver's door trim because I refuse to pay the outrageous price of $50 to buy a trim with a good handle that will replace the broken one on the FPV trim.

I also bought a bunch of parts from a Super Pursuit wreck. It took two carloads to transport it all home (one wagon full and one ute full). I kept the stuff that I wanted (4-piston front Brembos, 4-piston rear Brembos, the diff and the Bilstein suspension) and sold the rest. I've made about $4000 profit out of selling that stuff on eBay and Gumtree. That fluke deal made one hell of a difference to my net cost of all this.

If it's a hobby/love , not a business plan or cash making deal then the time spent doesn't come into it.

Instead of playing golf, watching telly, drinking at the pub or shooting hookers he was spending his time in the shed.

None of those other things get the time spent/money lost thoughts.

The original objective was to get a ute that cost bugger all to begin with (ie didn't tie up money) and would also have some use if I needed parts for the taxi in a hurry (eg battery, wheels, etc).

A few weeks after I started driving the BA XR6 Turbo I started wanting more. Hence the Super Pursuit parts that I bought - I wanted the Brembo brakes and Bilstein shocks.

Then the blue FPV Tornado turned up at auction. Somehow, despite not being damaged (ie just a mess), that one ended up hugely more time consuming than the crash damaged BA. But a lot more rewarding and fun to drive.

The hours that I've spent in the carport late at night would have otherwise been spent in bed, watching TV and eating junk food. No big loss there.

But now there's an actual enthusiasm for this F6 stuff. When I first saw Tornado #2 listed on Pickles I dismissed it - right car, wrong time. Keep the emotions under control. However, when it was relisted a couple of weeks later due to a dud buyer I started to think about it some more. I set my limits on bidding ($15,000... $15,500 at the absolute most), still got the car ($15,250) and will hopefully end up with a changeover cost of under $1000 once it's licenced in my name (ie registration and stamp duty costs).

Phil could have been in his cab earning coin instead of being under the car

Hence most of it was after midnight on weeknights (ie no taxi work). Maybe I should start putting time and date stamps on my photos - it would stun most people.

I was also at an advantage in that I had all the required tools already and access to Ford (and other) parts at dealer wholesale pricing. There's a huge profit markup on some parts.

Anything that I've done with the XR6T ute and Tornado that I didn't already have experience with pays off because I'll use those skills on my taxis in the future. I've also tinkered with different ideas and refined ways of doing things.

This is also why I went with a Falcon ute. In the whole Expensive Daewoo vs Ford thing I'm actually a Expensive Daewoo person, but I'll do what's practical. There's no point in getting a Late model camira ute, spending hours learning how to do one particular task and then never doing it again.

I'm gonna be damn proud of that green Tornado once it gets here. Until I can find a $90,000 HSV Maloo GTS (ie 430kw) for around $15,000 the FPV Tornado will do just fine.

[Tocchi]

I'm short for time, so my time = $$$, so I outsource it often.

But I still like to DIY too.

Tldr; 2x 6T projects at once = bad idea lol

[Mrs Jeturbo]

Finally got rid of the ranga look (from the faded out pink in my hair) and went back to my natural colour

Now people won't be looking at me like a fruit cake in the shops

Ok ok

It's probably more coz I am a fruit cake lol

[Ralph Wiggum]

-Insert joke about the female anatomy and self storage

[k31th]

storage of fruit cakes?

[Pixy Angel]

one eye monster

[masda74]

maybe a mobile phone too?